Schwarzwald

Rheinstetten is one of the towns just north of the Black Forest.  From here you don’t have to drive far to get to the Black Forest and so one day Kerstin took us on a little driving tour.  Of course, the weather didn’t play along.  A foggy, rainy November day it was.  But we needed to get out and thought a little drive, maybe to a café in a little Schwarzwald town would be just the ticket.  First stop was Dobel where Kerstin wanted to show us their ski hill, that all apparently flock to when there is snow.  We had a hard time finding the hill.  One t-bar lift up a small incline.  But the view over the region was lovely. 

The Black Forest is littered with little towns that were built around thermal water sources first discovered by the Romans 2000 years ago.  They are said to contain many minerals that have healing properities.  It’s also why many of the town names begin with “Bad”.  Baden Baden is the most famous of these bath towns.  Our little tour that day took us next to Bad Wildbad.  It is a beautiful, picturesque town as far as we could see.  We had to take a crazy detour to get there due to construction and then got so befuddled trying to get to the old town and find parking.  When we found ourselves back in the crazy detour we gave up and headed to the next town on the list, Freudenstadt (could be literally translated as “Joytown”).  It was dark and rainy by the time we got there but the Saturday evening church bells were ringing in the Sabbath and the beautiful marketplace with its arched shopping gallery made up for it.  We found a café there at the marketplace which wasn’t the nicest we’ve been to, but it was convenient enough for getting somewhere in the rain with a walker. 

Yesterday Anke, Tante Rita, my mother, Larry and I all went to Bad Rothenfels to spend part of the day at the thermal spa there.  The water was warm and comfortable.  It was nice to swim from the indoor pool to the outdoor pool and see the beautiful park landscape.  I’m not a fan of saunas.  I find them way too hot and therefore not very relaxing.  And we spent ½ hour in a salt room that is supposed to emulate the sea air.  The lighting changed to create different relaxing moods and they played mood music.  I could imagine that it might be relaxing after a stressful day, lying on one of the salt benches and maybe falling asleep.  I wasn’t stressed so I ended up feeling bored instead.  But I can totally imagine how others might love it and benefit from it.  My mother was a little uncertain in the water.  We had hoped that it would make moving a little easier and that she might be able to do the gymnastics class.  But by the time it started we were already looking like prunes and she wasn’t feeling secure enough so we skipped it.  We made up some of our own exercises though and I thought it went pretty well.  Maybe with time and practice and help it would be something that could be useful?